Night Bane

I do not care if the pain continues,
Or if the darkness does not part,
All I want is Someone
To wrap an arm around my heart.

I am in desperate need of answers,
But for the moment they can wait.
Simply come and be with me 
In this suffocating night.

I need to shed so many tears,
But the grief is somehow tied,
Will You come and weep in me
Till I am man enough to cry.
                                                Wilf 07/1998

The Bride and the Robe

The bride's works of love live on
As her robe in heaven is spun
In pure plaited light,fold upon fold
The living form of her poured out soul
Her body and robe are one.

The robe veils nothing but displays
Her fiery light in glowing waves
The secrets that virginity has held
Now fix God's gaze within their spell
As they burn with pure alluring blaze.
                                                           Wilf 08/1998 

The Moment

 1                          
The flame came down, encountering the lily
And both were held in awe,
Purity marveling at purity;
The bearer of the news,
The bearer of the word
Trembling on the edge of the moment
When the seed of God would tip into our world
In the heart of a pure girl's womb.
2                        
When the 'brave' braced back bends braver
And the knee knows now to kneel,
The conquered king is caught from his castle
Hauled,galled,called to the hallowed gallows
Head held high.
Clawing,gnawing,mauling;
Part lamb,beast and man;
And tears turn fears to trembling trust.
In this chaos of contrition
The seed slips silently in
And all heaven exults.
3
Still is the newborn earth
And heaven here is hushed
No faintest breath disturbs the air
Through which the nubile figures move.
If Divinity can look with awe 
Then this is the moment
For the Groom has locked his gaze 
Upon His bride.
She whom He has drawn from the beginning
Draws close and ever closer
Time and eternity meet as so many times before
Parts of this one eternal moment
The first touch
Consummation.
                                          Wilf 10/1998 

Adult's End

Ah those high heady heartbrimming days
When wonder met with wonders at every gaze
And the Fair Folk winked and laughed among sunlit trees
Dancing in the spirals of autumn leaves

          They said things would change
          When I became a man.

The change crept upon me like a slow
But certain winter
The cold winds aged me beyond my years
Where were the Fair Folk now?
Walled out of my world by reason
I missed them so,but more
I missed the world in which they lived
And the me who saw them there
So this was adulthood?
This is being a man?

Life was hard with so much understanding
All neatly boxed
My heart just a piston
But filled with a strange ache
Which ached and ached and ached
Throughout that long grey land.

Lately I thought I saw a face
Grinning in the trees,
Then a commotion rattling the leaves
Something mischevious was beckoning to me
More and more it was all around
Then I realised the truth,He
Who I supposed dwelt solely
Upon some transcendent shore,
Someone much fairer than the fair folk
Had smiled down in a thousand summers,
Was sparkling in each raindrop,
His grief in every tear.
He was bursting out of His creation 
Eager for me.

So I finally took His hand
And at last I learned to play
I took my first steps as a man
As I became a child again that day.
                                                      Wilf 10/1998  

Blue and Gold

Those who sang the blues the best
Were always down at heel
Dressed in shabby suits
Fondling a cheap guitar and bleeding strings
They sang tortured triumph
With gravel and diamonds in their throat

As for me I'm shabby too
My soul has holes
And barely fits
Sometimes it doesn't keep out the cold
I too sing my song

I feel afraid at times 
To look the bluesless conquerors in the eye
(The sleek untested babies of our western faith or
Those more valliant than I)
But when I consider who You are,Man of sorrows
And where you take your friends
I allow myself a smile
Which I hope is without pride
For when I am in heaven
With those of noble countenance
I shall meet their glance
Knowing
That the song they sang in full 
I sang in part and our joy is one
                                                   Wilf 03/1999 

Because

The men who pried the sky saw nothing
But the stars still shivered.
There was no earthquake down below
But the rocks quietly groaned.
There was no tangible disaster,
Though some of the devout,the tender ones
Were bowed down rather  more
With pity and divine alarm,
But it was just another day
And just another tear that fell.
                                                     Wilf 03/1999

Who Killed the Lamb?

Did an angry face begin to smile?
As the fleece was pierced and flayed?
Where were the mines from which was dug?
The iron for the blade?
And by whose art was all this formed?
In those uncreated days?

Before the hoards of people stood
Making war against the lamb
The creative sacrifice was made
By the weeping Father's hand
                                               Wilf 06/1999

Give me a Joy

Give me a joy
That does not out sing
The shouts and cries of the suffering.

Give me a smile
That does not shame
The wringing brow of mortal pain.

Give me a freedom
That does not forget
The backward gaze to the prisoner's net

Then I will be a lover
With riches and refuge
For all others
                                            Wilf 09/1999

A Heart of Tides

Upon this heart's frail bed
There are tides that rise and fall,
Known and unknown,common and yet
If I am not to be destroyed
By this heaving inner mass
Give me friends with the shoulders of God
To bear this with me.
                                Wilf 10/1999  

Anawim

A need so great
It would empty any heart
But God's.
A love so small
A mite, enriching the heart of God
As only undivided treasure can.

There

Here in the house where everyone lives
But no one ever goes,crowded
With sad hermits
Guarding the secrets that everyone knows
Here a forced smile and a joke is all it takes
To forge the spell of a thousand years
The forced fond forgetting,

But  the spell begins to break
When a solitary's tear is shed
The tear becomes becomes a pool of silver
The pool,an angry river rush 
That bursts its banks and sweeps and hurls 
The house away
Leaving all its family
Blinking in the sunlight there
                                            Wilf 10/1999

Blue

Blue,the colour of night not quite
Closed in,fading images taunting
Blue,the colour of a soul not yet free
Shadows and memories haunting.

Blue,the colour I become under your Fatherly hand,
Sometimes black and blue,
Pride making its miserable stand
Blue,seeing the ways I choose have been denied by You.

God is light
Every colour merged into invisible majesty
Then,is blue somewhere in Your heart?
And do You understand? Jesus man of sorrows
Man of blue.
But You are also red
Bright with a passion neither You nor we could contain  
Between our blue and Your red
Are all the colours of the rainbow
The insides of your heart displayed
Covenant.

Green,that would be my chosen colour
Alive and fresh,overrun with the spirit's succulent verdure
Green,tough and humble in the rough and tumble
Like the grass of the field trodden but not crushed
Food and beautiful growing everywhere.

"Blue and green should never be seen",that's right
Where there's blue there's not much life
But red in blue is purple the colour of kings
And here with You in the blue
Something beautiful is blossoming in the night

                                                                       Wilf 11/1999  

Hermione Danced

Hermione was possessed of particular grace,and whilst her beauty was not in the classic mould, it was very striking.Her race were well renowned as philosophers and artists.You could sense the depth of their thought by their unhurried movements;somehow serenity of mind was expressed in all they did.
                                    This was especially true of Hermione who was a dancer.Tonight was a very special night for her.When a member of her race came of age as Hermione had recently done,the great Feast of Entry would be held.The high point of this feast was called the Threshold Step.This was some work of creative inspiration by the one on the threshold of adult life,something that would express their love and intended devotion to the Great Creator.
                                                                       Hermione had danced since she was small,it had always been most engaging and it was something she had loved very much.But as she made her way slowly through the meadow to the feasting place she was afraid.
                                              She was not perturbed by the presence of her very large family,nor even by the solemnity of the moment.It was more to do with her great love for God, she felt that she could never really express this nor the wonder of the One she loved, however well she danced.But she had to do it and she had practiced every move and sequence relentlessly,now she must ensure that she didn't forget them.
                                  The more she thought about the dance the more fretful she became,and when she thought of the One for whom she would be dancing,her Creator,her heart was overwhelmed and she forgot everything.This continued all the way to the edge of the woods where her family and friends greeted her,and by the time the feast began and the music started her mind was a complete blank as far as dancing was concerned.
                                                  There was some time before she was to dance and she began to gaze around.The lustre of the grass,the elegance of the flowers,the might of the trees,they all seemed different this evening,they spoke in some new way of the One she loved,everything was so strong and beautiful.She was nudged out of her evening daydream by a relative,it was time.
                                                      The music had changed,she had often heard it,now it was her turn.She made her way slowly to the centre,realising that she she could not perform what she had prepared.
                                                               The moon was rising,the archer of the sky,the trees lifted high their boughs,a flight of dark geese flew towards the sunset.The trees,everywhere the trees,they had always fascinated Hermione,she could never climb one,but how she envied the way they reached up to the heavens ,to God.With that thought in mind she arched her back and rose up balancing perfectly on one tiny point, she was not even aware of what she had done,but quite naturally she had performed a move so simple,so very difficult and so perfect that the gathered throng gasped.Here was the very essence of her soul expressed in reaching up to God.No one who saw it ever forgot.The doves who were providing the music at this point could hardly continue,her relatives looked on,pondering the wonder of what they saw.Hermione the humble dancer standing upright? Standing.swaying gracefully,playing sometimes with,and then against the gentle breeze,the lustre of her sleek skin like wet jet in the moonlight.
                Everyone saw this remarkable feat, this reaching up to touch God.But more remarkable was the kiss of God which no one saw planted in the heart of a humble slug called Hermione.  
                                 Wilf 12/1999                   

The call of Brokenheart

Brokenheart You call one thing from us,
Nothing that the least could lack
Nor the greatest spare.
You simply want our all,
Broken and poured out as a waterfall,
Or countless tiny streams dancing down 
The mountainside.
Martyrdom or living sacrifice it is the same
The river of our love is Your desire.

So take this offering, 
It is small and often trembles,
It may never be a waterfall,
But it is a trickle flowing out to you
From the broken ground of my being,
And it will become a river,

If I can be thus emptied
For You 
Then I shall not be ashamed 
At the end 
To stand with Martyrs
On the shining shore.
                                       Wilf     12/1999

Secret Face

The voice of the wise said,
'Go into the secret place
And there you will find 
The secret face'

So the voice of the chattering mind
Began to state its anxious case,
'Whose face?Whose face?
God's or mine?
Will show in that hidden place?'

And where is the place?
Without or within?
What place? what face?
Where is its dwelling

'Go into the secret place
And there you will find 
The secret face'.
                                      Wilf   01/2000

These Thoughts

                        These thoughts;
                        Jumbled and stunned  
                        By collisions in my head,
                        Spinning into a rope of words
                        Thrown out in panic's confusion,
                        Have coiled themselves
                        Safely
                        Around your heart.
                        For the way is not found
                        By careful words.
                                                   Wilf 01/2000 

The tale of a nail

There was a mystery about that first moment of creation, something that caused us to linger,to look back into the uncreated darkness;but the rush and race of life was on,the wild mating of molecules.Life,harsh and beautiful,neither cruel nor kind;elements fusing and breaking
unstoppable,gorged with nascent fire.
                                                          We had flowed in the earth from the beginning,a river of iron slowly setting in beds of rock.There we rested in the heart of the warm earth,and the music of an innocent creation was our song.
                                                          But a day came when all that changed,pain welled up through creation like a great wave,and the music ached with a strange dissonance.
                                                          Many circles later I was mined by slaves,brave broken men and women,who wept in their sleep under the cold stars.By day they groaned under loads too heavy for human hands,they groaned under 
the whip,and they groaned as they dragged me up into the sunlight with bloody hands.
                                         It was nothing to me to be forged in the great heat of a furnace by the hands of artisans.The affairs of men do not touch us even though we are in their power,and although it was through them that we learned pain,little did I know how much I would see of that pain as I was carried in the soldier's pouch to the hill.
                                                                    Suddenly many eyes were upon me,angry hateful full of burning lust and the earth seemed strangely crowded
                                                        The hammer fell.It seemed to have descended a vast distance down through the heavens.It was wielded by a man but it hit me like a meteor,I ripped into his flesh and felt as though I bored for millions of miles before biting into the wood.The elements trembled ,space shook and would have collapsed had  something not restrained it.Even time itself shuddered to contain such a moment,but I held firm.
                                                           The hand gripped me and I knew;I remembered searching the uncreated darkness,looking to see what can not be seen and here somehow it held me in the agony of love.
                                                              From its great hidden depths welled up a river of liquid ruby,each drop more precious than a galaxy of stars,than all the races of men and angels,and yet here was a ocean,and still I held.

I realised that the hand I held was holding all creation in its palm and the sea of blood flooded every part right to its endless edge,and every moment of memory and hope were washed.It was as if the travail under which all creation groaned was being drawn away,but in some mysterious way
it remained.Amidst a shivering world two things were steady;the hand and the nail.
                                            When the darkness came something began to happen which I can not understand,and although I describe it in my way,it is no explanation.It was clear that I was supporting far more than a man in his dying 
struggle,and more than a betrayed creator.Something beyond the elements coming from the darkness,was pouring into him.I felt its deadly cold but he did not die.This went on until he uttered a terrible yelp of a cry,then we began the descent.
                 It was as if we shrank,becoming ever and ever smaller,down and down travelling on beyond the tiniest specks of matter,into the beyond which is within the heart of everything.Into the smallness which has no limit except to him who made it.He carried the darkness down and down,beyond all things until the darkness itself was no more.And the flood had engulfed everything from the greatest to the smallest.
                                      We were on the hill again,he uttered his final cry and was dead.Soon he was taken away,and I was discarded.The whole world seemed discarded that day as night fell and I began to rust in the dew.
      Strange things happened over the next few days.There were sounds of dismay,and then of laughter; of war's joy and triumph.There tears and sighs,rumblings and shakings;all coming from somewhere beyond this world and passing through it barely noticed.Then all was quiet and in the moments before dawn I saw a vision of a great hand hidden in darkness unfurling the new born stars,I saw the hands of anguished people reaching up to heaven,and the hands of slaves hanging down hopelessly.Then a wonderful thing happened,the mutilated music of creation suddenly became beautifuly harmonious;the pain of nature's fractured song was lifted into a grand mysterious harmony.In that moment timeless and swift, the hands were engulfed in one great hand,in which there was a wound;the wound that I had made,in the hand that I had held.Then I understood.
                                                                                I am rusted away,washed by the rains,blown by the winds,I am countless unseen grains.Rust.The travail of nature's song continues but hope dances in among it and one day the mysterious anthem will return for ever.
                                                           Wilf 04/2000  

Song for Calebs

Blue for sailors 
Blue for boys
Blue for waves and sky.

                         And Caleb was a sailor
                         Looking out to sea
                         Waiting for his little ship
                         To sail to eternity.

We all dwell upon a coast
Within reach of land and sea
And explore the land a little
In accord with our bravery,

But waves are never far from us
Who dwell in this narrow land
Whether we live upon the rock
Or exist upon the sand.

But only those who love the rock
Know truly how to sail
And children may reach the farthest shore
Whilst the proud and mighty fail
   
                        And Caleb was a sailor
                        Looking to the sky
                                                          Wilf 10/2002

Caleb was a little boy in our church who was born with a condition that affected his heart lungs and gut.The fact that he lived for 2 years was a miracle.

Sabre! Sabre!

Sabre! Sabre! shining bright
In the forest of the night
Does the gleaming of your blade
Issue from the God of light?

Is He who saved the widows' plight
And brought the blind man back to sight
Is He whose gentleness makes great
The mysterious hunter of the night?

Does He who promised liberty
Wield the blade so fearesomely?
Upon the weak who ask of Thee
A share of Your own charity,

Did He who sent the Lamb
Send Thee!
                                       Wilf 11/2001
When I was thinking of this poem dealing with some of the ways God works in the soul I had Blake's poem Tyger,Tyger in mind so it echoes that.But a strange thing was I began with the words dagger,dagger but they didn't seem right so I went for Sabre Sabre and at some point later realised the connection-sabre tooth tigers.One of those funny thing with language.  

Pleasure

The rising glide
Glances soul and hide
Brushes by 
And flies.
Its promises
Like kites sail high
But,
Before the wind's last sigh
They die.
                       Wilf 11/2001                 

God does not attend the theatre

God does not attend the theatre,
But he will come to your house,
Mad house,whore house,
Sad house,poor house,
Bad house-your house.

Even if your theatre is the best
He won't come
He doesn't come to see actors
But he will come to you.
                                       Wilf 11/2001  

Molten Gold

All those tears that I cried
In the night time of my sorrows
Were caught in your hand 
And flung to the sky.
There they were turned into stars
To guide my weary,eager steps
Up through the midnight mountains

Whether by light of dawn
Or by some holy alchemy
The silver stars have changed.
They drop like molten gold
Paving the way before me
Right to the streets of paradise
                                                 Wilf 12/2001
This is autobiographical but I had Paul Kossof in mind when I wrote this because he played a piece called Molten Gold,and he is one of those dead artists I feel an ache for

21st Century Mystic

Well I'm lonely and I'm aching
In the place where lovers do
I'm empty and I'm breaking
And it's all because of You
So come Lord Jesus come
I don't know if it's wrong or right 
But come Lord Jesus come,
And be my baby tonight
                                           02/2002
In case you're wondering this is meant to be deadly serious.I wanted to express the spirit of the old mystics in contemporary language because what we're talking about is for today.So you have St John of the Cross 
in something like the style of the New York Dolls,which no doubt will upset fans of both. 

Orison of the unforgiveable

He remembered when it all began,
Fascination turning to dark fire
Uncontrolled relentlessness ran 
Fuelled by his desire
For the young and innocent
He was burning lost and burnt,

But somehow from a stark and darker place
The blood drawn dawn dawned
And from that mourning morning's mourning
He was born,
Fresh and innocent
Untouched and young.
                                        Wilf 02/2002

Night-for my friends

Night never falls in England
It just slips and spills some of its darkness over us
But there is always the mess of cheap light 
Cast carelessly into the heavens.
Even in the wilds someone's unwanted light
Dims the noble night
So it holds no terror or visions
It cannot, it is too thin and weak to hide or carry
Any mystery.

But the moon
She brings something magical
Makes the night into a tranquil sea
Over which she sails 
To smuggle pearls and silver from another land
Pearls and silver to grace night's grey cloak

Darkness never really falls in England
But it does fall on some
It fell on me like a snake with gaping mouth
It swallowed me whole
Into the velvet rubber stomach of its night
And here there were 
Visions and terror.
                    Selah
You were like the moon
Very simply, very bravely reflecting the light
Of what was to me, a very distant sun
You caused its light to shine
In cool and steady splendour 
And compassion, in your tears
Which rolled like pearls on tracks of silver
Found me, and made my night rich.
                                                          Wilf 10/2002 

Will I ever see the glory of heaven?

I wonder if I shall ever see 
The new born Earth?
For if eyes are the windows of the soul
Then when at last I see You face to face
I know I shall see beauty
Vast and wild and free
Within the liquid lightning of Your gaze.
And I wonder,
Will I ever take my eyes from You 
To see the glories of that heavenly place?
                                                                  Wilf 11/2002

But

You see the smile,
But you do not hear
The creak of muscles
Lifting up the weight of sorrows
On his upturned lips.

You see the light 
In his joy filled loving eyes,
But you do not know
That it shines
From the riverbed of his tears.

You know that in his presence 
There is healing,
But you do not see
That the elixir of his life
Flows from the fountain of his wounds.

You see a hero,
But you do not know
His history of sad and hopeless bondage
From which he has been pulled free
Step by painful step.

He scatters your darkness
Your hope then rising like the golden orb
And you travel as on a summer's day,
But you do not see
The star that guides him
Far up the mountain road.
                                            Wilf 11/2002